Principal Software Engineer - Microscopy Data Management & Cloud Platform

About the role

A Principal Software Engineer is sought to design and implement a distributed scientific data platform for microscopy and life-science applications. The platform supports microscopy image data, metadata, search, transformation, storage, transfer and analysis workflows across instruments, user PCs, on-premise deployments and AWS cloud environments. The role calls for deep expertise in database-centric system design, high-throughput data pipelines, reliable data transfer protocols, backend interface design and scalable multi-user distributed systems.

Key responsibilities

• Contribute to the design and development of a distributed data management platform for microscopy and scientific imaging workflows.
• Design scalable storage, indexing, search, caching and high-throughput data-transfer mechanisms for large scientific datasets in hybrid edge/on-prem/cloud environments.
• Design and implement robust backend interfaces (APIs, contracts, schemas) enabling interoperability across instrument control, image analysis, UI and cloud services.
• Implement reliable, resumable data transfer pipelines between instruments, local systems and cloud, including offline-first and intermittent connectivity scenarios.
• Develop high-performance data ingestion, streaming and transformation pipelines for large image datasets and metadata.
• Define and implement data consistency, integrity and traceability mechanisms (checksums, versioning, audit trails, reproducibility).
• Collaborate with image analysis, web UI, instrument software and domain experts to define interfaces and end-to-end workflows.
• Contribute to engineering standards, CI/CD, observability, reliability and secure software delivery.
• Provide technical leadership through architecture decisions, hands-on implementation, design reviews, mentoring and cross-team alignment.

Required profile

• MS in STEM or equivalent practical experience.
• 10+ years in software engineering, including design of complex distributed backend or data platforms.
• Strong programming skills in Python and C#.
• Proven experience with AWS-based backend systems, storage, compute and scalable service design.
• Nice to have: experience with scientific or imaging data systems, microscopy image metadata (OME), search solutions, secure multi-user systems, S3-compatible object storage, caching, event-driven architectures, regulated environments, Keycloak/LDAP/AD, Docker/Kubernetes/Terraform, vector search or AI/ML retrieval, and life-science ontologies.

Required skills

• Database design, schema evolution, query optimization, transactions, indexing, data security and data lifecycle management.
• Backend API design (REST/gRPC), contract versioning, backward compatibility and interface governance.
• Network protocols and performance tuning (HTTP/2, gRPC, TCP/IP, latency vs throughput).
• Asynchronous and event-driven architectures (message queues, streaming systems).
• Data integrity mechanisms (checksums, hashing, validation, consistency models).